


Baby It's Christmas

by Solia



Series: Baby [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Baby love, Christmas Miracles, F/M, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen, MSR, The X-Files Revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:01:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21931897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solia/pseuds/Solia
Summary: With their quickly-growing new baby's first Christmas on the horizon, new parents Mulder and Scully are made to reflect on the grief brought by prior holidays, and to come to terms with what makes them a family. A Christmas miracle thrown in for good fluffy measure. This fic is a sequel to 'Baby Be My Valentine'.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Series: Baby [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1579420
Comments: 10
Kudos: 34





	Baby It's Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Files or any of its characters. 
> 
> Author's Notes: Merry Christmas, fandom! I know there are many other things I should be working on, but someone put this idea in my head earlier in the year after reading 'Baby Be My Valentine', and I have wanted to write it for you ever since. I hope you all enjoy this little Christmas gift, and sorry for the roughness of it - I wrote it all today, just wanting to get it out before Christmas. Happy holidays to all of you who have read me and supported me through this very hard year <3

He still doesn’t care much for the days that come pre-printed on the calendar, and they seem to matter less as their first year as parents blurs by in a sequence of snatched sleep, nappy changes and dopey exhausted lovestruck grins. You half-heartedly notice that it’s Easter, but then the baby gurgles and no one cares about chocolate rabbits. You think, hey, look, it’s July Fourth, but then the fireworks outside wake the baby and you wish it was any other day because she _will not settle_ after that. Life is full of magical firsts, and this is how the calendar’s used.

_February 14: first smile_

_April 2: first laugh_

_April 17: first tooth_

“Are you sure that’s a tooth?” he asks, holding the baby’s bottom lip down with a fingertip to inspect what Scully insists is the first visual sign of these troublesome little flecks of bitey bone that are coming through her gums. His partner is adamant, and writes the date on the calendar.

“William’s came through at the same age,” she replies before she can stop herself, and then seems to become suddenly busy with making lunch. He cuddles baby Bubbles closer after that.

***

She has never been one to enjoy the fuss of holidays, and it’s easy to ignore them as they flash by all year, overshadowed by late nights, untold car seat adjustments and too many exhausted tears to count. You realise you missed Memorial Day because you see recaps on the news while you fold the baby’s unending laundry. You only know it’s Labour Day because everything’s shut when the baby’s temperature spikes unexpectedly and you can’t get medication, so you stand helplessly beside the car, a sobbing wreck on the phone to your partner who patiently coaches you through options. Life is a string of developmental milestones and this is what the calendar is for.

_March 6: lifts head during tummy time_

_June 29: rolls over_

_July 30: sits up unassisted_

“Do you think she’s lacking in core strength?” she asks worriedly, putting the phone down after taking the obligatory picture of her baby sitting proudly on her round little bottom, trying not to compute how many weeks of delay this milestone comes after the chart said to expect it. Mulder is dismissive at first, lying joyfully on the floor with their daughter, babbling back at her while he records the momentous date.

“Why, when did William sit up on his own?” he replies over his shoulder without thinking, and they can’t quite meet the other’s eyes for the rest of the evening. She kisses Bubbles extra at bedtime.

***

He’s not good with remembering these things, but this year he’s got a kid, so he can’t help but notice that his sections of every store become overrun with red and green and white much earlier than they ought to. It’s insidious, really. Hints at first, a red and white striped outfit hanging innocuously in the baby clothes section or Rudolf picture books among the new releases.

“And to think, this whole holiday is all about _family_ ,” he comments in a mild aside to his daughter as he shows her the price on the back. She waves her arms and babbles nonsense from her throne, strapped to his chest. “Nothing about toxic capitalism brainwashing the masses into unnecessary spending through societal pressure to maintain their stranglehold on… Hi, how are you doing,” he adds with a quick smile at the elderly woman who has just looked up at him from the same pile of overpriced books. She mumbles a response and shuffles off, unsettled, and he wanders off in the other direction with Bubbles. She squeals when they enter the next aisle. “Toys? You like some of these toys? How about… No, not that one.” He lovingly pats the back of chubby expectant hands and moves on past the thin-waisted fashion dolls in short dresses. “It says on the unrecyclable packaging that it’s for children, but really it’s for lining already-rich pockets with money derived from the broken remains of young girls’ dreams and self-esteem. How about _this_?”

He emphasises with his voice and gestures to indicate to his daughter that he’s excited by what he’s found, and she reaches out with anticipation as he stoops to pick up a stethoscope set. It comes with bandages and a little carry bag for roleplaying doctors and vets. Together they admire the pictures on the box. Bubbles makes a comment in her own special language she’s yet to let anyone else in on, but her father understands perfectly.

“Right? Like mommy. You’re already adept at fixing broken hearts, aren’t you? Might as well start you off on your medical doctorate.”

He kisses the top of her head, downy thick strawberry-coloured hair tickling his nose. She’s become quite talkative since her first ‘official’ words – _mama_ is marked on the calendar as August 27, but he’s confident he heard _alien_ on July 31. Scully insists it was just two disjointed syllables, _ay_ and _yun_ , she happened to utter in sequence. He’s sure that like usual, she’s totally off the mark and missing what’s clear and obvious right under her nose.

And though the love of his life is frequently wrong about the paranormal, she also happens to be an absolute genius in all other respects, and as their baby girl babbles happily in her carrier, he’s totally certain, like many besotted fathers, that his child is a prodigy.

The stethoscope kit is for ages 3+ and the box shows much older children than Bubbles, but he buys it anyway. He wants the best Christmas ever, not just for this baby he adores who won’t remember a thing, but for Scully.

“Christmas is hard for mommy,” he explains to the baby while they wait in line at the counter. She keeps reaching for stuff hanging at the check-out. “It makes her remember the time she met your big sister Emily. That was a very sad Christmas. And it also makes her miss your big brother William.” And him, too, but he doesn’t say this out loud. “They’d be grown-ups now, much less fun to buy presents for. Hmm? What?”

Bubbles starts grizzling when they take a step forward, and reaches back with all her tiny efforts for something behind them. He apologises to the woman waiting after him, who nearly cops a chubby arm to the face as he turns to look at what’s caught the child’s attention, and steps out of line. There’s a display of discounted headphones in various colours. He indulgently steps closer so she can look, putting the stethoscope set on the floor so he can engage with her properly.

“Looks like a good brand but not a good present for a nine-month old baby,” he advises her kindly as she keeps reaching. He chooses a red pair off the rack so she can look more closely. She slaps her hands on the box and shrieks. He’s sure the checkout staff all wince behind him so he doesn’t look, and keeps his attention on the headphones. Bubbles doesn’t let go. They’re not an appropriate gift for a baby. They’re a gift for a teen. His heart twists at the reminder that if life had gone more to plan, if life were fairer, he’d be out right now Christmas shopping for a teenage boy, deliberating on what to get him.

He doesn’t mean to do it. Somehow he lines back up with a stethoscope set and a box of red headphones. He gets a receipt. He’ll justify it to Scully as a donation to some charity he’ll work out later. But for now, he enjoys the moment of shopping for both his children.

***

She has good reason to hate this holiday, but even she can’t deny away the encroaching signs of festivities as the year wears on. The supermarket starts to rearrange their stock in preparation for their Christmas aisles filled with junk no one needs, and recipes for allergen-free gingerbread and mini fruit mince pies start to replace the healthy-eating posts in her online mother’s group forum.

“I think they want your little teeth to rot out before they’re even finished coming through,” she complains to her daughter as she clicks through the pages of an online store. It’s the third time she’s exited a pop-up box prompting her to sign up for a newsletter in exchange for a free box of nut-free Christmas sugar biscuits with her first order. On the floor beside her, strapped into her walker and wandering about knocking into things, the baby replies with a series of serious syllables. She detects tones and mimics them. “I fail to understand the desperate need of stores and businesses to cross-promote with Christmas at the expense of their sense of purpose and integrity. Yes, I’m sorry,” she cuts herself off when her daughter crashes loudly into the leg of the desk to get her attention. “I’m being cynical again. Christmas is meant to be about the children, about the magic of believing in possibility. Except when it’s about money, and protecting the interests of those with power.” She turns aside and unbuckles Bubbles from the walker. The baby coos warmly about being lifted free and settled on her mother’s lap. “Let’s find you something sweet to wear for Christmas, hmm? Get mommy’s mind out of the basement office. Oh – speaking of.”

She can’t help the chuckle that escapes her when she scrolls down further to find that the baby clothing section includes licenced Halloween costumes. There is a Toy Story alien outfit for toddlers. She checks sizing for her baby’s age and Bubbles happily slaps the keyboard as many times as she can get away with.

“I know, exactly what your daddy’s spent his life looking for,” she agrees dryly as she manoeuvres the mouse. “Imagine him finding it under the Christmas tree. Though, secretly, I don’t think he’s really looking anymore – I think he already found it all in you.”

She impulsively kisses the smooth chubby cheek, marvelling at her baby’s eternal capacity for softness. She thought that about William, too, she recalls with a pang, and about Emily when she stroked her perfect little cheek in the hospital. Bubbles looks like both of her lost siblings at different moments, though Mulder didn’t know either of those children well enough to see the resemblances when she points them out. And though that makes her feel lonely in her distant grief, she knows that hurts him more than it hurts her. The fall of her daughter’s thick hair is more reminiscent of baby pictures she saw of Emily. The attentive shine in her eyes when she hears her name looks like William’s. She’s been responding to her name since eight months, roughly, though Mulder decided the first time he saw it to mark it on the calendar like he does with everything else. So it’s on there for time immortal, September 2.

And though the love of her life remains painfully obsessive, he also happens to be painfully optimistic, endearingly imaginative and forever hopeful, and she is grateful to see his influence on their happy, curious and engaged little girl.

The alien suit only goes down to the size above what she needs for Bubbles, but she adds it to the cart anyway. She had a single Christmas with Emily, a single Christmas with William, and this is to be the first of _many_ Christmases with Bubbles and Mulder, as an almost-complete family. She wants it to be perfect, for all of them.

“Christmas is a strange time for your daddy,” she idly explains to the baby, rocking her on her knee to try and distract her from the keyboard, though she doesn’t want to stop banging on it. The joy of repeated stimulus. “I’m sure he has lovely memories from being a little boy but after your Aunty Samantha went away, I don’t think any holidays were very nice anymore. And he won’t say it, but Christmas with you is going to be a big deal because he missed out on William’s Christmas, and even Emily’s. We’re going to be together this time.” Most of us, anyway, she thinks, but doesn’t say aloud. It’s too sad even now, almost two years after her big boy, no longer a baby, fell into the sea and was lost. She clears her thickening throat and navigates to the checkout, ignoring more prompts for nut-free sugar biscuits. “I’m sure they’d be humiliated to be asked to dress up like aliens for Christmas with you, especially at the age they’d– Oh, Bub, what are you doing?”

She takes her daughter’s hands possessively to stop the banging when the child finally manages an arrangement of keys that does something. The page refreshes back to the home directory of the webstore. Bubbles squeals in delight to see the new colours load on the screen, and a number of featured products appear centre stage. One is a dark grey men’s jacket, with large buttons and sleek lines. It’s an excellent price and boasts a high rating from prior customers, with mentions of its quality and lining.

“Looks lovely but even if you ever get big enough to fit that, I don’t think it’s a particularly meaningful gift for a little girl’s first Christmas,” she tells the baby. Still, she clicks on the product, seeing that her cart still has the number 1 beside it and her alien jumpsuit is still safely stored in its memory. The jacket is a handsome piece of clothing, demure-looking and apparently warm, good for a young man at this time of year. Something she would love to have been able to buy for her own son, now approaching adulthood himself if he were still alive. She again swallows away tears. Christmas this year is going to ruin her.

She knows it’s foolish and wishes she had a more logical explanation for her actions. It’s on emotional impulse that she selects a size based on a memory of a slim but growing figure and adds the jacket to her cart, and commits to the purchase. Once it arrives she’ll roll her eyes at herself, she’s sure, and Mulder will quirk a curious eyebrow at her uncharacteristic behaviour. And she’ll take it to the church and ask them to give it to a young homeless man for Christmas. But in this moment, she just enters her credit card details and enjoys the brief contentment of buying for both her children.

***

He intends to stop at the headphones but it goes a little further than that, though he feels like this one is less odd and more sentimental.

“No touching,” he warns the baby as he navigates the crowds, again with her hanging from his chest. The ‘big day’ is drawing near and they’re in the endless Christmas section of their nearest department store. They’re surrounded by sparkling, enticing ornaments, many of them spun of delicate glass or shaped from ceramic, and his daughter is _his_ daughter after all, and stares at all the silent stars with wide eyes. Her hands clench and unclench with the desire to grab. “Daddy doesn’t want to have to pay for the absolute destruction you could manage in this place.”

He’s on a mission to get Bubbles her first Christmas decoration. Their tree is sparse this year, and they’ve agreed to start (or rather, restart) a tradition of giving her a new ornament to mark every Christmas. Because Scully had only one Christmas with her other two children, but will have _many_ with their Bubbles.

“Not hard to know what style to get for you, hey?” he asks rhetorically when he spots a blown glass sphere with an opalescent gloss. Perfect. He carefully lifts it free of the hanger to show his daughter. She coos and reaches. “Not a chance. Let’s get this in a shockproof box we can keep it in for three or four years until you’re responsible enough to live with all the obstacles your daddy keeps littering the house with.”

There’s a box at home with many more of these, though they haven’t opened it since they lost William. It’s been too hard. He never spent a single Christmas with the boy who should have been his son, but every year, from the one he spent in New Mexico alone all the way through to the last one, he has purchased an ornament to mark the occasion. One year it was a tin train, sculpted from scraps and hand-painted by local craftspeople and sold in a night market he happened to be passing through. Another year it was a little wooden nutcracker with glittery trims. A mosaic star, a mirrored snowflake, a flocked reindeer, a gold bell. Whatever he found in the place he was in when his lonely mind drifted to his son, he bought, wrapped, and sent to Scully. In the times they spent Christmas together as a couple, he’d learned she’d received every one, and hung them on her tree each year.

Last year they didn’t do a tree. They were expecting Bubbles, and busy with preparations, and just both too sad to unbox William’s ornaments knowing he was gone.

He’s on his way to the counter with Bubbles and the ornament that looks like her name when she kicks violently and starts ranting, “Dadadadadanananana.”

“What?” he asks, holding the glass bauble clear of her wild legs. He happens to glance aside at the decorations that hang here in their neat and ordered rows. His eyes are automatically attracted to the most unusual, a black, faceted crystalline crescent moon. Without intending it, he considers how mature it is, how elegant, perfect for a young man just cusping on becoming who he would have become, and he threads a finger through its loop and carries on to the checkout.

He’ll add _two_ new decorations to their tree this year, and dig out those old ones, too. William was their son. His legacy is part of this family they’ve built with Bubbles, so his memory can hang on the tree with hers.

***

She thought the jacket would be the end of the sentimental purchasing but it goes one step further, though she’s less embarrassed by this one.

“You know how Mommy feels about cards,” she mentions to the baby on her hip as they stand in line at the post office. It’s meant to be a quick trip to get some stamps and send these handful of obligatory seasons’ greetings away to the people who expect them, so she hasn’t even brought a pram with her, and is now wishing she had in light of the slow-moving line she’s joined. “Deforestation disguised as social protocol.”

She’s only sending four, and they’re all on recycled paper, all hand-decorated by Bubbles. How _Christmassy_ they look is up for discussion, as Mulder coordinated the activity and he’s not a parent who likes to impose much on self-expression, but they’re at least cute and will hopefully make Matthew smile. Bubbles’ biggest cousin is all grown up now and is studying in Amsterdam. It’s therefore her brother and sister-in-law’s first Christmas without their baby, and she’s feeling that, deep inside herself.

“Hold still, Bub,” she instructs when the baby leans her weight to the side toward the card display. Her chubby hands, a little sticky from saliva, slap and mark a pretty card that she’s now obligated to buy, despite her misgivings. She sighs, shifts the baby’s ever-increasing weight to the other hip, and takes the card from the stand. “Well, since you picked it, it can be yours.”

There’s a box at home with many more of these, though they haven’t opened it since they lost William. It’s been too hard. She started writing in one each year after she found and lost Emily in only a matter of days, and no one’s ever read them, though she knows Mulder knows she keeps them. The first one was the most hurtful to make herself write, addressed to _the child I’ll never have_ , but was cathartic enough that she continued the tradition year after year. When she was miraculously pregnant with William, but tragically alone, she amended the wording to _my future child_ , and then to _my baby boy_ , and then after she gave him away, back to _the children I’ll never have_. In these tear-stained cards, she recorded every Christmas hope she had, the things about herself and the world of the time she wished they could know, and wrote to them about Mulder and the kind of parents she knew they could have been together. They were messages of love and loss and longing, and she’s still got them all. She’s keeping them now for when Bubbles is old enough to appreciate them, but still resents that life, or rather death, got in the way of her sharing them with William.

She didn’t write a card last year. It was too overwhelming to decide how to start writing it – to the children of her past, or the hope growing inside her womb? How could she honour one and not the other? In the end she wrote nothing, and just survived the holiday and looked resolutely forward to the birth.

She is continuing closer to the counter when Bubbles throws her weight aside yet again and wails. She drops all her envelopes and the new card in her effort to keep hold of the baby.

“What?” she asks worriedly, repositioning the baby to improve her grip. Should have brought the pram. She happens to glance to the side at a glimmer that catches her attention, and spots a classy gold card. Without meaning to, she reflects how perfect it would be for a young man, not too serious, not too playful, and she grabs it as she stoops for the dropped stationery.

She’ll write _two_ cards this year, and find that box of old ones, too. William and Emily were her children, though each came to her in unexpected ways and stayed nowhere near long enough. Their lives, though short, are part of this family’s legacy, and her messages for them this Christmas are as valid as her messages for Bubbles.

***

Without a calendar, no day looks any different than the last, and calendar-appointed days of significance dawn and end the same as all the others, without ceremony.

Unless you consider life’s _real_ calendar, the precious moments of firsts and lasts and love and laughter and all the other things so little and so inconsequential that they can’t help but be marked forever upon the memory. A baby’s giggle. A father’s sigh of contentment. A mother’s whisper of devotion.

On Christmas Eve, with the threat of new snow hanging in the dark outside and the smell of too much food cooking merrily, both parents huddle on the sofa before the fireplace with their little one snoozing. They know they should have put her to bed more than half an hour ago but it’s sometimes too precious a moment to break when she falls asleep on them, little cupid mouth hanging open, long lashes fluttering with dreams.

“The tree looks beautiful.”

“I found the ornaments in the attic.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“You started writing again. The cards.”

“They’ve been in a drawer too long. It’s Christmas. I wanted the memories out and around us.”

“Me too.”

Softly, so as not to disturb their sleeping princess, they lean into each other to press a sweet kiss to the other’s lips. They’ve struggled long and hard to get to this, but their love has ultimately prevailed, and created this perfect little being they now get to call their daughter. Circumstances stole one child before she was ever theirs; other circumstances kept the other away from them, just a wish, a dream, somewhere in the world, only to cruelly shine a light on him that crushed that dream of coming back together.

Life is not fair, but they have been the recipients of many miracles – miracle children, miracle returns from death and abduction – and Christmas works its own miracles.

The doorbell chimes. The baby stirs. One of them slips out from the warm embrace and goes to check the door. It’s almost dinnertime and the porch light is off, so the visitor is not identifiable through the glass, and the surprising face is not recognisable until the door swings open.

“Hi,” the shivering teenager manages shyly, awkwardness evident in his every atom. He’s skinnier than last time, his cheeks sinking with malnourishment, his hair dirty and his clothing not thick enough for this weather. The first snowflakes have landed in dark hair. “I’m sorry… I know this isn’t… I ran out of places to go. I’m sorry.”

His parents both stand at the door, staring in disbelief. His father saw him take a bullet. His mother recalls the slash through her heart when the drivers could not find his body. He was gone.

Scully begins to cry, years of emotions she won’t address pouring forth. Mulder struggles to breathe.

“How…” So many questions start with _how_ , and he wants to ask them all, but instead he goes to “How long have you been standing out here?”

“Not long,” William lies automatically. It’s clear in the way he’s standing, one foot already on the step, like he’s preparing to leave. He’s geared himself up to ring that bell. He’s afraid he doesn’t belong here. “I was… You know, I can come back at a better time. I’m sorry.”

He can’t. His mother can see it in the state of him. He’s used up all his courage coming here, and only because there is nowhere else. His power draws attention to him he can’t afford, and homeless shelters are full at Christmas. He is alone, and cold, and lost. If he leaves now he’ll be too ashamed to come back.

“Why…” So many questions start with _what_ , and his mother wants to ask them all, but instead she does with “Why don’t you come in?”

“It’s okay,” William lies immediately, and takes a hurtful step back. His eyes are on Bubbles, cradled still-sleeping in her arms, and he thinks he’s intruding. He thinks this isn’t his family. “It isn’t fair of me to rock up like this and surprise you after all this time. I’ll… I’ll go.”

Mulder catches him in a crushing embrace and locks his quivering body against his own warm chest. This _is_ his family. This _is_ where he belongs, regardless of what miracle brought him here. They will not question this luck.

And he just holds this boy he wished for, dreamed wonderful things for, for all those years, until William finally, tentatively hugs him back.

“I wanted to protect you, from me,” the boy whispers into his shoulder. “I’m sorry to do this now. I just had nowhere… I ran out of places to go,” he says again, lamely. His father releases him and presses a firm kiss to the boy’s temple.

“This is the _first_ place you go,” he responds, adamantly. He gestures inside. “In. It’s cold.”

Their near-adult boy slinks in apologetically, backpack hanging dejectedly from his shoulder. He looks nervously at his mother, who smiles in disbelief through the tears tracking her cheeks. She’s not sure it will work when she extends a hand to touch him, but it connects with his cheek. Not as smooth as she remembers, not as soft or as clean, but the same William. A laugh escapes her and wakes the baby.

“I’m sorry to do this,” he says again. “I know this is confronting.”

Scully shakes her head and reaches for him, and he bends his taller frame obligingly so that with one arm she can clutch him close, with his sibling snuggled between them. It takes him a moment. Then he wraps his arms around her too. Safe. Where he should be.

She withdraws to look him in the eye, stroking his beautiful face.

“You are _so_ welcome here,” she promises him, with all the conviction within her. She gestures for his bag. “Come over to the fire and get warm. You’re in time for dinner.”

“Smells good,” he says weakly, handing over his bag, “but you don’t have to–”

“It’s Christmas,” one parent interrupts. “You’re staying for dinner.”

“And presents,” the other reminds them all as William is led over to the fireplace. The boy lets down his guard enough that a surprised laugh frees itself from his mouth. His laugh is oddly familiar to both of them. It warms everyone’s hearts. He nods at the dozy baby.

“Is that…?”

“Your sister,” they confirm, and tell him her name, her carefully crafted and perfect name, then add, “But we almost always call her Bubbles.”

He smiles wide, a real smile.

They get their son warm. They get him cleaned up. They share an oversized hot meal with him and delight in watching him enjoy it. He talks. They talk. They retire to the living room and shock him with the realisation that they meant it when they said he had presents.

“You too?” his parents ask each other when they both withdraw something from under the tree, but there’s no need for a silly justification now. He tries to refuse them, but a few minutes later he’s lost the argument but gained a warm jacket and a pair of headphones. He reclines on the sofa, looking dazed with his own contentment.

“Bubbles chose it,” Scully tells him as the now-wakeful baby crawls – as of September 26 – across the room to get to the interesting newcomer in the warm-looking coat. He watches her approach with tentative interest and she climbs to a wavery stand by holding his legs.

“The headphones, too,” Mulder admits as their littlest family member babbles happily at her big brother. William isn’t sure how to behave but he clearly wants to bond and to engage with her, so he talks to her and adjusts his position so he can lean forward to her level. Doing so means he withdraws his knees from under her hands, and she’s left standing unsupported - something she's been doing on unreliable occasion since November 30. It’s just a moment, but long enough. She starts to topple back, and no one’s close enough to stop the inevitable fall to knock her head on the coffee table.

She doesn’t, though. Time is marked with firsts and milestones, and tonight is already engraved in their memories so it’s fitting that they get something new for their calendar. Bubbles experimentally tips her weight forward and swings a leg as she does. Her foot lands, her weight shifts, and she brings the other leg to join it. A step, another step, and then she collapses grinning into her petrified brother’s reaching hands.

He must be expecting noises of fright or dismay so he’s taken aback by their cheers. It’s perfect, every single fraction of every single second of that evening, from William and Bubbles’ ornaments twinkling on the tree to the line of old cards gracing the mantlepiece to the chime of the baby’s giggles twining with the nervous laughter of the teenage boy they thought they’d lost.

“I’m not sure the calendar can fit anything else on this day,” Scully whispers when Mulder takes her hand, and they watch, with hearts full of joy, as William helps his little sister with more determined steps. There's so much to work out but none of it needs to be dealt with tonight. He squeezes her fingers warmly.

“We’ll write really small.”


End file.
